Analysis

38.4% of Planned Parenthood’s 2009 “health center income” is from abortion

Planned Parenthood Sign
Planned Parenthood likes to talk about how only 3% of their services are abortion.

A simple example of how they come to this calculation would be Planned Parenthood aborting 3 children and giving out 97 condoms. They would say that out of 100 services, 3 or 3% were abortion when in reality the significance and cost of the 3 abortions is much higher than 3% of their efforts.

Planned Parenthood’s accounting of 3% is misleading and not consistent with the rest of the business world. In college I interned at the airline manufacturer Boeing, which sells a lot of airplanes and also a lot of spare parts for those airplanes. For every airplane they sold for tens of millions of dollars, they also sold lots of spare parts for as little as 25 cents. By looking at TOTAL number of sales, you could conclude that 1% of their business was selling airplanes and 99% was spare parts, which is totally ridiculous. The reality was the value of the airplanes sales was close to 99% of their business and the spare parts 1%. Looking at the cost and effort of what is being offered is a much more accurate way to measure. Let’s apply this industry standard measure to Planned Parenthood:

THE TRUTH

This means that fully 38.4% of Planned Parenthood health center income comes directly from aborting unborn children.

pampers baby
This is a far cry from the 3% number that they try to dupe the public with. Doesn’t it say something that even Planned Parenthood, the leading abortion chain in America, tries to downplay their role in ending the lives of unborn children? Someone feeling a little guilty?

   
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  • Papist Ph.D.

    Thank you for this! The reality of economics (or of anything, for that matter) seems to be lost on those who support Planned Parenthood.

    • steverocknroll

      It's not lost, it's intentionally misconstrued. In other words, 'spun'.

      • Anonymous

        Please state what facts in this article are incorrect.

  • Nancy Manno

    Defund this evil Extermination Corporation!

  • Adrrya

    Well to be fair they would get a lot more money for their other services (birth control, pap smears, uti and yeast infection treatment, etc) if those other services weren't offered at low cost to free. Abortions give them a lot of money because I'm pretty sure those are always given at full cost, since they aren't "supposed" to be covered by government money. That being said, even if all their other services were offered at full cost I'm sure all of the abortions they do would still be a fairly large income provider in comparison.

    • Anonymous

      Interesting that you talk about abortions being done at “full cost” while the Planned Parenthood backer above you on this thread says they are always given at a discount. Which is correct?

  • atypicalalias

    Your argument is so full of logical holes, supposed writer, that I fell through your article. They are a low cost provider. THEY DO NOT CHARGE THE AVERAGE. They charge far below it. You need to find out the average cost of an abortion Planned Parenthood performs, and use that number rather than the average of them all. As it stands now, you have not made a point, you have only made a fool of yourself. You're not very bright.

    • Anonymous

      What evidence do you have that Planned Parenthood charges far below the average for abortions?

      Planned Parenthood’s website states that a 1st trimester abortion costs betwenn $350-$950. So the Guttmacher Institute estimate seems very reasonable. Please provide facts and evidence to backup your claim.

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  • brennakpdx

    I just actually did the research, and this article is quite misleading. Sure, PP's *total health center income* (ie what they get for charging patients for services) is only $404M, but their entire budget with that, gov't funding, private donations, fundraising, etc is $1.1B according to their annual report (pages 28-29). Were the Guttmacher cost estimate given above taken at face value, that would leave abortions (which are paid for by the patients) constituting 14.1% of the budget. This 3% figure that is stated by PP, however, is not financial, but is (pretty damn obviously) the total number of patients treated (page 2 of the annual report, page 2 of the fact sheet).

    • livewell8

      "pretty damn obviously" huh?

      The 3% is total services not "number of patients treated". One client could get birth control 10 times in a year. 11% of Planned Parenthood patients received abortions. 332k abortions out of 3mil patients. That is known.

      • brennakpdx

        And that is a 1:1 fiscal correlation… How? I just meant that 3% was obviously never meant to be a financial statement, and that still stands, despite repeat visitors, siamese twins, dwarves, or other irrelevant patient totals.

        • Anonymous

          But you would agree this article is factually correct?

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  • http://twitter.com/Quenyar Quenyar

    This is simplistic hogwash. The figures are inaccurate, the sources are questionable and the conclusions are invalid. In their history, the US military has murdered millions of children and pregnant women (see  Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, etc… long list). This does not mean that the purpose of the US military is to murder children.  Should we defund the US military? Well, maybe so, but I have not provided anyone with a valid reason for doing so. I have merely cited a fact without context. Planned Parenthood saves many more lives than it takes. How many women who have had safe medical abortions at PP went on to have healthy happy babies later? How many of these women would have been horribly mutilated or killed if they’d sought back ally abortions? Would that be a better outcome?

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  • guest

    ummm….except your numbers are wrong because Planed Parenthood’s budget is 1 billion a year.  Unlike a for-profit, a non-profit receives donations to help cover the costs of things.  So actually abortions account for 11% of all clients (332,000 abortions/ 3 million clients) and money from abortions accounts for 15% of the budget (155,000,000/1,000,000,000).  Higher then the Planned parenthood 3% figure but below your figure.  

  • Hermesdaniel66

    ummm  is it shown this is whatPP charges for an abortion??? The logic is faulty….I get the point… but let’s make a different assumption.. that all the breast screens pap smears, and other services are free or at low cost and the only service they did charge for was abortion…would that be bad?  Then, 100% of income would be from abortion… oh wait..did you want abortions to be free??

    Alternatetively lets say they charge half what was stipulated… then only 15% of their income is from abortions…do you see the point???

    What is their average??  And, really, much of what they do is without a doubt non-abortion oriented…and the donations can be stipulated that they are not for abortions. 
    And, make no mistake… abortions are not necessarily getiing easier to get.  Far from it.  There is more regulation and more couseling and such to see.  And, unfortunately, many itmes the same people who don’t want abortions also don’t want contraceptives.  While many may not agree with contraceptives, I will always hold that they are not to be discouraged by availability.  that is a person and moral choice for the two individuals involved.  Not to mention the STD’s that are out there today.

    • Gazerdaestrela

       Thank you! I was looking at the comments to see someone make this point. PlannnedParenthood isn’t all about abortions and it is annoying to see people make this assumption all the time. It is a women’s clinic that offers competitive prices.

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  • Anon

    Your conclusions are very faulty.   Your own research shows that out of the total number of services Planned Parenthood preforms 3% of those services are for abortions. 

  • Guest

    I prefer to look at it this way, average price for students is about $9 per pack of birth control pills (so $9 of 99% pregnancy protection for a whole month). From what I remember, the average cost of abortion is $400-$600 so we’ll say $450 which is slightly lower than what the article stated. So keeping that in mind, for the cost of 1 abortion, a women could stay protected for about 4 years. Defunding means the price of helpful and healthy services they offer would go up where abortion may be more pricey but probably not by much.

    Taking away these services you’ll be more likely to see either more abortions or more unplanned pregnancies in the future.